


Another Love

by Jaimeapollo (ohbacchus)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Demigod AU, I promise, M/M, Sheith Secret Santa 2016, incomplete-will be edited and finished
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 03:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9415466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohbacchus/pseuds/Jaimeapollo
Summary: NOTE: My writing process is to write the entire fic at once, then go through and edit it all. Due to the fact that this was a secret santa gift, I had to put something up. This is unedited and inconsistent with the changes I have made to the plot. This whole chapter will probably be redone entirely when I have finished and edited the full work. Basically, I would not suggest reading this yet.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CharlesMyDarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlesMyDarling/gifts).



> (please read summary)

_Keith could remember the feel of Shiro’s hands brushing against his own. The touch had set his skin on fire in a way that only frustrated Keith further. He said something, something biting and cruel and indistinct, and left. The halls he walked through were familiar, but they were wrong. The curves were just a little too smooth, the colors brighter than they should have been.  
It started getting hard to breathe, Keith’s chest tightened and he tried to hurry. His legs felt like lead, his mind was working too slow. He needed to leave. He needed to go somewhere, anywhere._

_Then it was there. A red door right in front of him. It was old and battered, the paint was peering in some places and completely missing in others. He didn’t want to go through it anymore. It opened anyway, and he was shoved through by some invisible force from behind. He stumbled forward and then down, because there was no ground._

_There was never any ground._

_But now he was prepared for this, and he looked around. It was the same desert, the acres of sand and brush broken only by the straight road that cut directly through the center._

_He looked behind him._

_There were mountains in the far distance, and he committed their shape to his memory, every ridge and peak. He reached his hand up and traced the shape with his finger, muscle memory as well as visual. This time he would not forget._

_Then he hit the ground._

The moment Keith jerked awake, he grabbed the pencil and paper he kept by his bed every night, hoping for this. He almost couldn’t believe that it had worked, even as he pulled his hand back and looked over the outline on the paper. He expected something to be wrong, but there wasn’t anything. It was finally right. He let out a small, shaky laugh. It was so fucking stupid. He dropped the pencil on the table, it bounced and fell to the floor. He didn’t notice, though, because he lay back on his bed and pressed the palm of his hands into his eyes. He held himself like that for a moment, then let his arms fall to the bed. 

“What the fuck am I doing?” He asked the empty room. 

He didn’t get a response. 

He groaned and stood up; he had to do something. Which was to say, he had to do the same thing he had been doing every day for almost three decades. 

He carefully pinned the paper to a board covered in similar drawings, quick frantic sketches done in the first few second of consciousness. And that had been the last piece. 

He had expected it to feel good when he pinned it up. At most he had expected a sudden flood of inspiration and clarity and a solid grasp on what to do with it, and at least he had expected to feel a vague sense of accomplishment. 

All he felt was the emptiness he’d been trying to fix get a little bigger. It didn’t answer anything, it only gave him an underwhelming feeling of ‘what next?’. 

He let out a small, frustrated noise and left the room. Which is to say, he went into the only other room in the cabin. The water in the shower was as cold as always, but he didn’t care anymore. He just kept it brief. He made himself breakfast on the tiny wood-fire stove. He’d never been good at cooking. He washed the bowl and spoon he’d used, he only owned one of both. 

He pinned a map up on his wall and glared at it. It was somewhere with a great expanse of sandy desert, so that eliminated most of the world, but still left too much to sift through on his own. He stared blankly at the map. That had been the single spark of inspiration he’d had left, and now he didn’t know where to go. 

He swore and grabbed his jacket, pulled on his boots, and stormed outside. He’d grown to know the woods around him, and it was easy for him to pick his way through the underbrush. He didn’t have any particular destination in mind, but he didn’t want to be in that stupid cabin anymore. 

He knew where he would end up, anyway. He always seemed to go to the same place whether he meant to or not. There was a tree that had fallen across a shallow river. It was shaped perfectly for him to recline, supporting himself carefully between two branches. 

He didn’t know what he was doing. He’d hated the visions at first, but when he figured out they were genuinely trying to tell him something, he became obsessed. Probably because, for the first time in centuries, it had given him something to do. It was a goal that he’d been reaching for, albeit blindly. He had knew it was leading him somewhere or to something, but he had nothing beyond that. 

And now he was there, and the only part of the riddle Keith understood was solved. 

He stared up at the sky. It was always clear during the day, only raining during the night, and never snowing. It had probably been a side effect of his presence. He wished it would rain then, if only for a change of pace. 

He stayed out until the moon began to show above the trees and then left, glaring at the ground the whole way back. 

But when he reached his cabin, there was the soft, warm light in the windows. The kind that was given off by his stove when the fire was lit. He hadn’t seen anybody in three decades, and he knew for a fact nobody knew about this cabin except for him. 

He snuck up to the cabin and pressed himself to the wall under the window, ears strained to hear anything he could. There was the soft sound of voices, he couldn’t tell how many. The sound was too muffled to make out anything other than vague distinctions in pitch. He counted three, maybe four different voices. He snuck around to his porch. The door was open a crack and he could see shadows on the wall, moving as whoever was inside did. 

Keith could’ve tried to sneak in, but he knew he’d be noticed. His best option was to just bust in, catch them by surprise. He mapped out a plan of attack in his head, accounting for five people, just in case. He took a deep breath. 

Then he was on his feet, practically throwing himself through the door. Three voices cried out in unison, and Keith’s hand wrapped around the wood axe he kept propped up by the stove. He turned, ready to take their heads off, but stopped himself short. 

His eyes narrowed as he took in the three in front of him, all crowded against the wall with their hands held up in surrender. He lowered the axe, but didn’t loosen his grip. 

“Get out.” 

Lance was the first one to drop his hands and step forward. His presence had always pissed Keith off, but now Keith’s feelings are just shy of loathing, even before he opennd his mouth. “Hey, take it easy, dude. We just wanna talk.” 

Keith eyed Pidge and Hunk, both of whom still looked nervous. “What, because you missed me so much?” He scoffed, turning his gaze back to Lance. “Yeah, right.” 

“Actually, yeah.” Pidge spoke up, dropping their hands and stepping forward. “It’s because we miss you, and everybody else. We’re trying to find everyone again.” 

Keith stared at them, then at Hunk, then at Lance. “Get out.” He repeated. 

He turned and put the axe back. They didn’t move. 

“We know where Shiro is.” 

Pidge’s words were like a bolt of electricity through Keith. He tensed, his eyes widened, his heartbeat quickened. His fists finally loosened, and his hands trembled. He took a deep breath and straightened his back. “I said, out.” His voice was strained in an attempt to keep his voice from shaking. 

“Dude, don’t pretend you don’t want to find him.” Lance says. His hand fell on Keith’s shoulder, and he snapped. 

He spun around and shoved Lance back. “I’m not going with you! Go find him on your own, and when you do tell him he can go fuck himself!” He shouted. “Now get out!” 

Hunk stepped forward finally. “We can’t find him without you.” 

“Then he can stay lost.” 

“Fine! Then we’ll find him ourselves.” Lance said to Keith, then to Pidge and Hunk, “I told you he would be a dick about it” 

“Fine!” Keith shot back. But the idea of the three of them finding Shiro without him made him even more irritated. “Why do you need to find him at all? He was the one who left us!” 

“It doesn’t matter if you’re not going to be a part of this.” Lance sounded so smug Keith had to actively try not to punch him. 

“It matters because… Because... “ Keith tried to think of a reason, but his anger clouded his thoughts. “Because it does!” 

“Nope, not good enough. Come on, Hunk, Pidge, let’s leave Mr. Emo here to his angst.” 

“I thought you said you couldn’t find him without me.” Keith moved to block their exit. 

“Yeah, we were just saying that to get you to come with. But you wrote everything we needed to know down, which is awesome because I didn’t even want to come get you in the first place.” Lance jerked his thumb towards the notes pinned across Keith’s wall. 

Suddenly, everything came into perfect, painful clarity. “You mean the visions were leading me to him?” 

“Uh, duh.” 

Keith didn’t have it in him to respond as his anger faded into understanding. It suddenly seemed far less coincidental that that morning he had found the last piece, and that night the three had showed up. He found his gaze being drawn to his window, where he’d hung what was probably his most precious belonging. It was a stone, so pure white that it almost seemed to glow. A thin silver wire wrapped around it and attached it to a fine silver chain. Illuminated by the moonlight, the stone was so beautiful it made Keith’s heart ache. 

He hadn’t realized he was moving until he was standing in front of it, reaching out to unhook it. The whole room went dead silent, he was only vaguely aware of the other three watching him. Finally, he turned back to face them. “Give me twenty minutes to pack what I need.” 

Pidge and Hunk exchanged excited grins and Lance punched the air. “Hell yeah! I knew we could get him in on this.” 

Keith frowned at the three of them, finally remembering to be angry. “I’m making you wait on the porch.” He said, instantly souring Lance’s mood. It made him feel a little better. 

Lance tried to argue but Hunk pulled him out the door. 

When he was alone, Keith looked around the room. He didn’t have much to bring. He shoved all his clothes in a dufflebag, grabbed a few toiletries and his stash of money, almost half a million in cash. He pulled everything down from the walls and put it in his bag as carefully as he could. Finally, he hooked the necklace around his neck and tucked it into his shirt. 

He swung his duffle over his shoulder and scanned the room one last time. He would actually miss this place. It had been quiet and distant. Maybe he’d come back here one day. 


End file.
